Blogger Walter Bright says that two activities separate programmers who write fast code from those who don’t: using a profiler and examining assembly code.
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While most developers have been told that a program spends 90 percent of its time in 10 percent of the code, Bright believes it’s really more like 99 percent of the time in 1 percent of the code. A profiler can identify that 1 percent where developers can concentrate their optimization efforts.
Many coders also neglect to look at their assembler output, mistakenly believing that it’s too complicated. However, looking at the assembly code can point out hidden opportunities for optimization.View article